Habitat: Farmyards, roadsides, and waste places; often troublesome in lawns.

A coarse grass that came to us from India and behaves as though domesticated. It grows from clustered, fibrous roots, the culms six inches to two feet long, flattened, decumbent at base, from which there are usually several branches. Sheaths loose, overlapping, compressed, smooth but hairy at the throat; ligule very short and minutely toothed, blades three inches to a foot long, often crowded at the base of the culm, rather thick, pale green. Spikes two to ten, digitate at the end of the stalk or one or two below near the top, one to three inches long; spikelets appressed, three- to five-flowered; glumes unequal, rough-keeled. Seeds black and wrinkled. (Fig. 24.)

Means Of Control

In yards and waste places the grass should be hoe-cut or hand-pulled before it develops seeds. In lawns, a few drops of crude carbolic acid squirted into the heart of a tuft with a common machine oil-can will kill it, without defacing the smoothness of the sward as a hoe would do.